Race Reporting: Burbage Skyline #2

By Lucy Watkins, a fell running 'newbie'.

WOW - So this is Fell Racing!
A multitude of feet, mud bogs, wild rock clambering, sleet sprinklings, peachy sunset glow, painful tired ascents, wild river sploshings, long power descent home to the big yellow flag that wasn’t near enough!!!

A fantastic show of people, runners and cheering watchers – (NOTE TO SELF – must have support crowd ready with warm clothes and chocolate…. and beer money!)

So even though I was expecting a course half the length it was a liberating experience, what with the rough terrain and late hour of the day – bootiful!

A wonderfully varied route beginning just below the Fox House pub – starting uphill (?!) then plummeting down through rocks to Burbage Brook and up the other side (where the reality of setting off so fast set in!) and veered off down and left towards the Surprise View car park on a nice sandy path through low shin-cutting heather. Evil up through the boulders – very pretty as I plodded at a walking pace with time to look around!
A stunning panorama met our eyes at the top, passed the Mother Cap rock, as the path flattened and opened up; looking towards Hope an orange misty glow was nestled in the valley bottom – a real prize in itself.
Along, then down, then an “Oh NO – we’ve got to go up that!” moment as we saw the fitter runners ahead and the realisation that we were joining the Higgor Tor path. Not so bad though!
Then WHOOOSH! – what a descent; the ground just fell away from the feet, back down to Burbage Brook, via some slippy mud and tree roots that no matter the warnings everyone seemed to go askew. A manic jump across the water, through the trees then another even more manic jump back across the water to even more mud-sucking bog, as the path slowly went up to Burbage Bridge. Another “Oh NO” moment as the faster runners could be seen silhouetted on the Burbage Edge skyline.
A dizzy skip across the muddied brook boulders onto the path above the Burbage cliff line as the last of the peach glow started to fade. A wonderful last blast negotiating the rocky path obstacles down to join the lower track and on, and on, and on it went. But then, there it was, in all its glory, the yellow flag and all the paraphernalia that goes with 300 people finishing a race just before dark, in the middle of nowhere, being cold, exhausted, thirsty, slightly disorientated but hugely relieved and happy!
But it was the number of feet at the start that I don’t think I’ll forget in a hurry – they were everywhere!!

So that was 5 ups and 5 downs!
Doesn’t sound too bad now . . . . I think I’ll be doing the next one!

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